Buying Groups

Product Catalog for Buying Group Platforms

Published October 5, 2022  |  8 min read
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How Are Product Catalogs Used for Buying Groups?

For buying group platforms, product catalogs serve a number of useful functions related to finding the right products to add to cart.

To get the most out of your product catalog, you'll want to customize it to your specific workflows and offerings. This means customizing aspects such as the presentation style, filtering system, search function, and more. How you do so depends on your buying group eCommerce website and what your users are looking for.

How Product Catalogs Help Buying Groups

Product catalogs for your group buying platform will provide a better and easier user experience and boost retention and sales. More buying groups will be able to complete their orders and they won't have to try Googling a product on your website to get to it.

Throughout the years, we've developed a deep understanding of what product catalogs can do for buying groups, and importantly, what problems they solve and the questions they can answer.

  • When Will This Arrive? – This is often a question customers ask when they are having an item shipped to them. That's why having shipping estimates integrated right on your product catalogs can be an extremely helpful feature.
  • What's the Best Fulfillment Option? – Your product catalog can be a vital feature for buying groups who need to optimize fulfillment costs. Let them see exactly how many items they need to fill a container and what they can do to optimize logistics.
  • How Many Are In Stock? – Buying group customers don't want to get the "item not available" message at checkout. It's crucial to let them know right on the product catalog whether or not it's in stock, and depending on your business, you may want to have number indicating how many are in stock. This makes sense if your customers often buy large quantities or bulk order.
  • We'd like a Refund/Return – No supplier wants to hear this from their customers, though there can be a variety of reasons for this. To eliminate refund requests due to ordering process errors for large or expensive orders, you can set up a quoting or approval workflow. Then you can make sure all the details are worked out with the buying group.

Optimize Your Product Catalog for Buying Groups

To get the most out of your product catalog, you'll need to tailor it to your buying group platform and customers. We make our product catalogs—and our entire buying group software, for that matter—extremely robust and versatile, so we can adapt it to your needs.

That includes integrating your product catalog and other frontend software with your backend software, like your ERP, CMS, and CRM systems. With a single source of truth for your product catalog and group buying platform, your platform will stay up to date and accurate.

Product Catalog Features for Buying Groups

  • Map View & Search – Provide customers with an interactive map view that they can move around to get an idea of where stores and warehouses are. This is especially useful for buying groups who want to see shipping estimates on a map or who are placing orders nearby and want to pick up items themselves.
  • Approval & Quoting Workflows – Large or expensive orders may require an approval process or a quote before a customer can place their order. Our product catalog system can be set up to automate some of the steps in that process.
  • Automatic Updates – With an ERP integrated with your back-office system, inventory and other details are automatically updated onto your website. End users can view whether something is in stock, backordered, or out of stock, and set up a notification for when something becomes in stock again.
  • Optimized Presentation – The presentation and format of the product catalog automatically adjusts to the user’s preferences and chosen catalog and filters.
  • Product Comparisons – Product catalogs give users the ability to compare products quickly, which gives them the information they need to make a purchasing decision.
  • Enhanced Filtering – Built-in analytics within the catalog help you determine what people are filtering for. You can then utilize machine learning to automatically progress the most often used filters to the top of the list for a more user-friendly filtering system.
  • Navigation Depth – A navigation menu can be included on the side of the page for easy access. And beyond category filters, there’s filters for category and suppliers, too. With this depth of filtering and navigation, users can easily access different areas of the catalog.
  • Minimum Order – Some items may have a large minimum order quantity, so it’s important that users can set a minimum order that’s required so they can see if it’s within their budget range.
  • Supplier Details – In addition to details about the product itself, there can also be details about the supplier, such as whether the supplier is on the site, their response rate, and what seller level they are (e.g., Silver or Gold). These factors help drive interaction between the buyer and the seller.
  • Promotions – The product catalog can also display personalized marketing for different sellers who want to promote their products within the marketplace. You can have sponsored listings at the top with organic results beneath those.
  • Minimum Quantities – Some orders, like those that are shipped in large quantities, may need a minimum order quantity for a buying group to place an order. You can set that up in your product catalog.
  • Product Variations – Let buying groups sort through the variations of a product, e.g., different sizes of track spikes. Variations can have different prices that are dynamically applied based on what's selected.
  • Dynamic Pricing – Different prices can show up for different customers on select products. When a customer logs into their account, they’ll see their account-specific discounts, promotions, coupons, etc. Dynamic price ranges can differ based on the filters selected as well, such as the number of items and type of material.
  • Dynamic Search Field – The catalog search field can be dynamic based on the customer that’s logged in. A customer might have a particular vendor they usually buy from, or a certain set of items they often buy. When they go to search and start typing, the dynamic lookup field will filter the list of items based on the activity associated with that account.
  • Custom Fields – Products in the catalog can have an unlimited number of attributes or custom fields that work as filters. Products can automatically have certain attributes applied to them when they are placed into a category, and we can add this data dynamically based on an ERP integration.
  • Stock Indicator – The product catalog can include a visual indicator of stock levels. There can be a green dot for in stock, yellow for backordered, and red for out of stock. There can also be rollover icon tooltips where users can get more information.
  • Discount Indicator – If there’s a discount, it’s good practice to show how much the discount is for. This is also something that can be set up and filtered for in Clarity’s product catalog.
  • Details in Rollover – We have a rollover where, if you want to turn on this feature, users can compactly see options to add to a favorites or wish list, add to a compare list, or add to an in-stock alert. Or the rollover can contain information about delivery and shipping options, for example.
  • Sticky Bar – A sticky bar that floats down when going through the list of items can let users see various details. If fulfillment and containers are important for your marketplace, the sticky bar can show the capacity on different containers so users can optimize their load.

Product Catalog Example: Buying Group Functionality

A product catalog for your buying group eCommerce platform will require some industry-specific functions. Here's an example of some features for a buying group platform.

  • Filter Search by Inventory – For some buying groups, it may be crucial that they can order a certain quantity within a certain amount of time. So it may be beneficial to provide buying groups with a way to sort by how many items are in stock right now.
  • Multivendor/Affiliate Optimization – Tailor your product catalog for multivendor group buying platforms by having landing pages for vendors/affiliates within your buying group site. Show items for a particular vendor and have branded pages within your platform to help vendors or affiliates build credibility.
  • Easy Browsing Layout – Let customers sort through products by viewing product photos as cards side by side. This is an easier way to browse that shows the photos in larger detail and minimizes other information. The user can click to expand or change their view to get details and specs.
  • Set Up Notifications – Decrease cart abandonment by letting customers set preferences for notifications and reminding them if they have items still in their cart. They can also set up their preferred methods for receiving notifications, such as text, call, or email.
  • Single Source of Truth – Integrate your product catalog with your ERP software to have a single source of truth for all your attributes, filters, and products. You can set up attributes as filters for customers to use or as behind-the-scenes attributes for analytics or internal workflows.
  • Display a Unique Catalog & Wish Lists – Each buying group will have their own wish lists, shopping lists, etc., as well as preferences on how they like to view the product catalog. Optimize for each buying group with machine learning and by utilizing their preference inputs.

Key Takeaways

Dynamic Data & Standardization

Since products will contain different sets of data, the product catalog will need to adjust accordingly. It's also vital to standardize listings so customers can compare items.

Fundamental Platform Integrations

There are some fundamental integrations that are required for a buying group eCommerce to scale. One is ERP integration, as this enables customer-specific pricing and self-service for your buying group platform.

Facilitate Collaboration

For buying groups, collaboration is crucial, so make it a priority on your buying group eCommerce platform. For example, it's helpful if members in an organization can share wish lists, favorites, and shopping lists.

Discover Your Optimal Product Catalog

We've been developing buying group eCommerce software and optimizing product catalogs for their specific needs for years, and we're happy to share our expertise. That's why we offer a free, no-obligation discovery process, where our experts go over your buying group needs and offer advice on what functionalities would be the best fit. Don't wait to get the solution you need—click the button and get started today!

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Written by Autumn Spriggle
Autumn Spriggle is a Content Writer at Clarity Ventures who stays up to date on the latest trends in eCommerce, software development, and related topics to provide readers with the latest and greatest. She strives to help people like you realize the full potential for their eCommerce business.

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